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Comment by jodah | Hacker News Reader

> There are people who are screwed by the system, and there are also people who just screw themselves.

And there are people who are neither, such as myself.

I don't think that the discussion about how crappy our system is and how to fix it should be owned by any one of these groups. Maybe the article's author is the not the poster child for financial responsibility, but that doesn't make his arguments about the broken state of our system any less valid.

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But he doesn't just make an argument about how broken the system is. He also makes an argument for what people should do in response. It's an illegal, questionably moral, and quite often risky response. That's the part that's wrong, and in advocating for the second part he undermines any effort to do anything about the first part.

Perhaps it is questionably moral and risky, but why should it be any more so than a corporation filing for bankruptcy? The difference is that bankruptcies are, to some extent, priced into the system. If they weren't and if personal bankruptcies, for example, weren't allowed, we'd see problems with personal and housing loan underwriting standards dropping to the level of students loans. It's no coincidence that there has been a strong push towards making all personal loans exempt from bankruptcy. Being setup to fail is profitable.

So how do you change things? You can change the rules of the game, but the rulemakers are tight with the gamemakers. You can refuse to play, but playing the game is seen as the only way out for many. Or you can refuse to pay and break the game permanently. I don't advocate any particular approach, but I understand those who do.

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